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Meaningful Learning or Internalized Hammer and Sickle Style Habits of Mind and Behaviors?

Let’s go back to that Herbert Marcuse book from the last post. In making a point about a desired new Soviet rationality Marcuse stressed that if certain ‘attitudes and behaviors’ can be successfully internalized, they will provide unconscious “pragmatic directives for action.” That effect has nothing to do with physical geography. Instilling desired habits of mind and practiced behaviors would have the same effect in the West as was recognized in this old post where Soviet psychologist Leontiev called it the Great Experiment. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/imitating-the-ussr-in-striving-to-discover-how-the-child-can-become-what-he-not-yet-is/ Funny how no one told us about the Great Experiment being conducted on us starting in the 60s with our tax money and education facilities, but filter everything I described in Chapter 6 of my book through that open admission.

I think the “Nation’s Report Card,”–the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP–was always intended to monitor the progress of the Great Experiment. I think that is why the Carnegie Corporation began to finance the development of NAEP back around 1964. Before we talk about the poorly understood, designed always to manipulate, NAEP, let’s get back to the why. Here’s what Marcuse and others believe: obviously false statements about the present do not matter because if people can be made to believe them anyway, they can still become those desired attitudes and habits of mind. People can then be counted on to reliably act in a way so that the “historical process in which the commanded political practice [in the West this gets hidden mostly invisibly in education objectives and little-disclosed mandates like the now omnipresent Positive School Climate] will bring about the desired facts.” (italics in original)

Now if someone actually wants to believe that current reality and the facts about what works is in the way of a desired transformation, it is no wonder we now have education where facts and right answers are to be minimized and concepts and ideas emphasized instead. Sure sounds to me like what Marcuse said was practicing with “the original content of Marxian theory as a truth that must be believed and enacted against all evidence to the contrary [exactly like President Obama and the UN now on Climate Change]: the people must do and feel and think as if their state were the reality of that reason, freedom, and justice which the ideology proclaims, and the ritual is to assure such behavior.” Until it becomes an internalized habit of mind practiced from preschool to high school in an active, engagement-oriented new kind of educational emphasis?

Let’s shift back to the Breakpoint and Beyond book from the last post because it made a similar point. A new kind of society was possible if people could learn the “art of changing one’s mind…After we have put together a new frame of mind, we then rebuild our society by reinventing our organizations.” Without a solid base of historical knowledge, how many people will be aware that we are trying to redesign social institutions around theories? That’s how we get lots of people willing and primed to act with an inability to comprehend the foreseeable consequences. It’s where we are now because none of these pursuits is new as we will see. We have been creating educational objectives around a desire to “devise the means to change our minds about what is real: from a belief in the limits of a rational, past-driven world to belief in the limitless potential of a creative world.”

No one asked us, did they, before embarking on this Bipartisan vision of Creativity, Connecting, and Future Pull? Do the politicians and their all too important staffers actually know why we are now pushing education where the “processes shift from logical and straightforward to innovative and discontinuous. The basic human strategy moves from ‘solving problems,’ by attacking them piecemeal and getting back to normal, to formulating broad and original opportunities. [Maybe by using that appointed regional planning commission so that its edicts are binding and there is no one essentially to complain to]. Attitudes shift from finding and applying the ‘right,’ tried-and-true, traditional answers to energizing the production of unique advances: major breaks with the past. The system moves to creating the impossible [or at least trying while the architects of all this are well-paid with taxpayer funds or foundation grants]; not just doing things differently, but doing different things.”

When NAEP was first being created from 1964 to 1968, Ralph Tyler chaired its development committee. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/is-common-core-a-catalyst-to-dramatically-alter-system/ reminds us of why that matters so much. The 1970 “What is National Assessment?” report made it clear that NAEP’s ultimate goal “is the measurement of change (progress) in knowledges, skills, understandings, and attitudes as they relate to meaningful education objectives.” The emphasis is on “objectives rather than content.” In a 1972 paper “National Assessment: Measuring American Education” Ralph Tyler was interviewed and he made it crystal clear that NAEP was about “helping schools get rid of the right-answer syndrome and replace it with learning how to learn.”

I am the one pointing out that this statement fits with what Marcuse laid out as well as the creative mindset amenable to change that the Breakpoint book had in mind. Tyler stated that the NAEP is not a test. “They are exercises that children, youth and young people are given” that show the “public both what children are learning and how many are learning each thing.” The exercises sought to remove any middle class bias and “attempt to measure the youngsters’ thought processes or their ability to perform [behave] in some way.” Making my point that standards are ‘goals’ and are not about content as traditionally understood, Tyler revealed forthrightly back in 1972 that “the objectives or goals represent a kind of standard which is considered desirable to achieve. The exercises, if they are good measures, tell to what extent the goals are being achieved. This approach tells very specifically what a person knows or can do.”

For anyone unfamiliar with Tyler, he was every bit as much an advocate of transformational collectivism as John Dewey or anyone else we have looked at. From looking at the NAEP reports from that 1970 one coming forward, I do believe that the Washington Sunday Star warning that “What the Kinsey Report was to American sex, the National Assessment may be to American education” is an understatement. I could say something more here, but best not in case my mother or children ever read this post. NAEP was intended to radicalize American education and then monitor which groups were changing, by how much, and where. It was chilling then when this NAEP research pulled up a National Education Goals (NEG) Panel report from the March 3, 1993 meeting where then Education Secretary Lamar Alexander was presiding. Apparently Richard Riley had not yet been confirmed.

To bring us up to the present context, that would be the same Lamar Alexander who has now created the Bipartisan Every Child Achieves Act that we looked at in the last post and especially in the comments. It would also be the same Richard Riley who is now Vice Chair of the Carnegie Corporation that is also working with CCSSO in pushing Next Generation Learning and Competency-based education in addition to the Common Core. Back to 1993 though, the notes show now-Senator Alexander as wanting to get the accreditation agencies “engaged in the dialogue about standards.” He wanted a meeting set up between them and the NEG panel. He also reportedly waxed nostalgic about heading the National Governors Association and getting all the nation’s governors to work with him for the entire one year period from 1985-1986 on just the one subject of education.

He was proud of creating a way for Democratic and Republican governors to work together and was pleased that the NEG Panel was continuing the same tradition. The Senate’s Education Committee apparently continued the Bipartisan selling out of America by approving ECAA last week without dissent. Probably best then for those Senators to now remove the American flag from their lapels. They may not be aware of the Hammer and Sickle ancestry of what they are mandating, but that does not change the lineage of these ideas, practices, and objectives in the least. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/transcending-the-individual-mind-as-the-analytical-unit-of-learning-while-still-guiding-how-we-will-act/ is another good primer for a Congress that is forcing collectivist traditions whether they know it yet or not. We certainly do.

Back to that 1993 meeting because it still affects what is being sought now. It sought to “Establish a National Education Standards and Assessment Council (NESAC) to provide leadership and oversight to the development of national content and performance standards and an assessment system.” The Panel also wanted to “support the continued expansion of NAEP.” Think of NAEP as the enforcer for moving beyond “right-answer syndrome” to assessments that could get at how students think and what behaviors they are ready to perform. Now think of the language in ECAA about “aligned achievement standards” each state must develop to go with their mandated ‘content’ standards as being about what in 1993 was still being called ‘performance standards.’ Behavioral in orientation now and then. Two different terms for the same concept.

I forgot to tell you what sent me down this particular pathway, didn’t I? It was my conclusion that there was some type of connection among the New Standards Project that fits all that the 1993 panel wanted and commenced in 1996, performance standards, and what the NAEP is actually assessing for. Guess what? I was right. Guess what else? All of this ties to what was considered ‘meaningful learning’ in the 90s and in the New Paradigm for College and Career Readiness now.

Oh, and Every Child Achieves Act also ties to what used to be called Proficiency Standards for Reasoning. Because specifying that and then practicing until it’s a habit of mind would get us back to Marcuse’s vision wouldn’t it?

61 thoughts on “Meaningful Learning or Internalized Hammer and Sickle Style Habits of Mind and Behaviors?”

So glad you filled in “Czar Lamar’s” background. Important to know that when you consider the forthcoming legislation. People often don’t remember that he was Secretary of Education under Bush 1. And that he’s been very supportive of the New American School concept headed by Tennessee’s own Chris Whittle that opened the door to charter schools. Not to forget that he’s been a presidential candidate as well.
Plus throwing Leontief and Ralph Tyler into the mix! Yum, what a devil’s food cake!

CP-at the time of the 72 interview Tyler says he is the acting President of the Social SCience Research Council. IIRC from the Rockefeller F’s 100th anniversary commemorative book that came out in 2013 they created SSRC.

You remember NEGP. Again I simply stumbled over this as I made connections. I had always thought NSP was just about new types of assessment. National Center on Education and the Economy has within the last 18 months or so put up all the old NSP documents. That is how I learned they had an office in Austin, Texas. Once again a reminder on why Texas did not need to be part of the Common Core.

Robin…..all such great info and for those of us that have followed Charlotte Iserbyt, Anits Hoge and Peg Luksik for years we have been aware of many of the secrets you have been exposing. I am sure all 3 of these historians would whole heartedly support the information you share. BUT knowing all of this does us no good without a plan to stop it. Many people read the info, yawn then hit delete. I have learned we are now speaking to the vast majority of people that have already gone through the process and are not capable of connecting the dots, individual thought and most importantly the ability to think like a visionary. And for the rest that get it the vast majority of them have no ability or interest in “bucking the system.” So what do we do??? Spreading more information will not stop the Titanic from sinking. It is going down fast.I think we need to get a room of people like you, me, Alice Linihan, Anita, Peg, Mercedes Schneider and a couple of others and do some brainstorming to kick off an national campaign to expose and eliminate what they are doing. I believe if we don’t do this and do it yesterday all the blogs in the world on this subject won’t be worth the time it takes to write them.

Tell me where and when. I did say though this is a two parter in part because so much I intended to say would not fit so I decided to create the cradle for the rest.

I think Atlanta was one of the 6 cities involved in the New Standards Project and that was why it had to cheat on the CRCT. It is interesting as Tyler said back in 1972 that NAEP was also criterion-referenced. APS was having to cheat because not enough kids could get to the criterion being measured. It also was piloting all these constructivist practices that it wanted to be the future. We need quite a few of us to block the narrative that the cheating was on standardized high-stakes tests made necessary because many of the students were poor and of color. That is absolutely NOT what the APS cheating scandal was about. I think Bev came down from Newark primed for the revolution.

I also want people to begin to understans precisely what a 12th grade NAEP would be measuring. It would be little knowledge and much compliance with this desired vision.

The part where the student talks about now being able to go to law school and then the video ends with a comparison to a dissertation defense is heartbreaking. That is about knowledge. This is about personalizing experiences to student’s current life. Big difference.

Here is a great video presentation by Anita Hoge. If you just click to start the video and close your eyes and listen you will swear this presentation was done today. Anita talks about a lot the stuff in your blog. TAKE NOTE she is presenting this information to a group in GEORGIA.

Couldn’t agree more, Karen. I spent the evening listening to Patrick Callahan mislead parents about the new integrated math. The parents in the room saw through the charade but most still don’t see the true shift from content to competencies. The SBAC / CRESST marriage and our CORE districts out here in CA–which are currently running the largest field study in the history of US education measuring non-cognitive skills–tell a very complete story. When the new assessment goals are seen in light of the data infrastructure being put in place, it’s clear the line between a student’s private and public will be wiped out and the collective will consume the individual. I know that the opt out movement plays into the hands of the reformers–and yet will we lose the fight if the goals and infrastructure related to the federally funded assessments are not exposed? Hoge suggests focusing on FERPA…is she right?

JT-two points I need to add. Like Fort Worth and Houston (revealing why Texas did not need the Common Core), Long Beach appears to have been a pilot in the creation of the New Standards Project. Search for NCEE-National Center for Education and the Economy and New Standards Project and then download all those docs. It looks just like the practices being pushed now as about Competency and the Common Core. Notice NCEE has put those materials back up recently for easy use. I looked at all this several weeks ago when I was tracing all this.

Remember social engineering at a neuropsychological level for purposes of being a compliant citizen content with collectivism in our future would meet the current definition of data collection for educational purposes. Until the horror of the Axemaker Mind is better understood and its role of developing constructivism in reading, math, and science, it is hard to appreciate what Congress is getting ready to enshrine into federal law. Educational use is allowed under any current interpretation of FERPA I have seen even before Obama’s Executive Order.

The OECD and its CERI research unit have now confirmed they see the Great Transition I have tagged as aided by using constructivist practices to force different neural pathways than what traditional math and science and fluent reading create.

Thanks, Robin. Pulling the Economy and New Standards Project now. What’s most alarming to me about LB is the methodical transition to the new (old) pedagogy. Michael Fullan and his team are in full force, persuading and nudging teachers and admin via professional development (aka re-education), making it appear as if the shift away from knowledge and facts is their idea. Callahan actually said last night that the main reason for integrated math resulted from “research” showing kids in middle school were board. The group of teachers behind me applauded in agreement. The ability to sway so many so easily without any evidence goes back to our schools of ed that have lacked real content for sometime now. Sad times.

JT-somehow I had missed that in October 2014 CCSSO partnered with the Center for American Progress to produce this report https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Accountability-report.pdf pushing all states and districts toward performance standards. It also helpfully points out that it was the 1994 rewrite of ESEA Improving America’s Schools Act that imposed an obligation for the first time to hold all students to the same standards. That makes the NEG Panel’s work all the more interesting from the previous year.

The next Generation accountability lays out then how to get students the necessary dispositions for that Human Development Society without formally tying the two together. That’s my job. No wonder I can track all this now back to the early 60s. I was going through the Behavioral Hierarchy Charts this morning that were created as part of the NSF-funded inquiry and activity curriculum for elementary school–Science: A Process Approach. It all fits with where Competency, UDL, and Equity force us now. Performance is just less graphic in catching attention than Behavioral Hierarchies tended to be. Same function though.

Malleable Minds may be what is sought, but Growth Mindset sounds so much better.

My grandson, age 12, says he’d like a simple YES or NO. Did I achieve the goal or not? He doesn’t like the word “emerging” — like some butterfly coming out of a pupa.

In his school this is the grading scale — Donkey — Horse — Zebra — Unicorn.

That’s graphic enough !

Certainly an orderly learning climate is desirable in a classroom, but all these social-emotional-learning devices and graphics are unnecessarily playing with tender minds.

What is amazing is that while educators seem to disdain “direct instruction” in teaching reading, yet (as this referenced article suggests) they would “Devote 10 to 20 minutes, 5 times per week, to direct instruction in behavioral literacy using graphic organizers.”

Chapter 2 of my book also lays out what is known about what reading does to the mind and how that is known to be a barrier to the kind of new rationality we now have Marcuse on record in seeking as well.

No interest in facts, just restructuring the mind at a neurological level. Lovely. Our minds as a constructed system that we are blissfully unaware of and other know precisely which prompts have been deliberately put into place to guide future behavior.

I find much of the tracing of ideas and non-profits and people confusing. If this is ever put into a book form I think it would have to linear maybe????

In order to make this subject easier to understand here are some random thoughts.

1. The goals of some people you mention are explicitly stated by them and have shock value. I am thinking of Marcuse, Dewey, and others. To the extent that current ‘educators’ do no disavow or even admire these people the original goals should be high lighted.

2. Think things, not words, and focus on concrete examples of classroom instruction and testing. The more numerous and specific the better. After all, the labels applied to these methods don’t really matter and will change soon so maybe there is a way to present the methods as more factual. E.g. Robin’s description of her kid’s AP class instruction and grading was shocking to me and new to me. She likely said the same thing earlier using the ‘eduspeak’ language she is warning about but the reality was not made real to be until her example.

3. Make clear early on that what you are saying is true even if Russia no longer existed and the educator knows nothing of the history of the methods. You said that in you book but maybe not early on or maybe I needed to beat over the head with it.

4. These ‘eduspeak’ documents are gibberish with nice sounding labels stuck on some concepts. You are kinda tracing the history of gibberish which is by nature hard to understand some times.

I am a little concerned that analysis of these CC ideas is hard to understand but don’t know more than that what to do. Perhaps a glossary of terms with concrete examples and maybe the history of the terms and the ultimate goals would help???

Thanks eclectic. All good advice. Everything in the book is crucial to understanding this story but it has been about 3 years since I finished it. In the meantime I now know so much more of why I found what I found than I appreciated then. The pursuit of a Human Development Society turns out to be far more widespread and coordinated than I had any idea when I wrote the book.

Would a chart that read “Higher Order Thinking=Dialectical Thinking=Critical Thinking=Necessary New Mode of Thought to Achieve Human Development Society” help?

How will it play that Congress in a Bipartisan manner wants to force all states to measure and monitor the extent to which each student can successfully engage in Dialectical Thinking of the sort Hegel, Marx, and the USSR viewed as necessary to force transformational change?

How about all these discussions taking place in the US in the mid-80s and published in Educational Leadership. It sure puts the Enschede conference and what John Goodlad wrote into even further importance?

Rigor is also intended to be a euphemism for Dialectical Thinking. As usual I am reading the book used except the would-be educator or one working on another degree did not remove her note postits. She is thus repeating what the professor was saying on the Common Core from materials republished from the 80s. I feel a bit like the fly on the wall.

My college kid has promised to help me create some powerpoints this summer to use when I speak. All comments are welcome. This has been a shocking journey for me too.

Robin……I believe you know how to contact me off line. Yes I did notice there would be more to follow. I am sending a presentation done by Anita Hoge. If you start the presentation and close your eyes you would swear she was talking to a group in the current day. And this presentation was given to a group in GEORGIA. And a lot of what you state above is discussed in this presentation. I believe it to be a real eye opener for anyone that does not believe this has been a conspiracy against America for decades. Even if you cannot get anyone to believe it has been closer to 100 years at least this (and there are several other ones) proves what we face today is no different than what people like Anita and Charlotte have been fighting and warning us about in the 80’s. You are perfectly about the the cheating that took place in Georgia and those people (although instead of cheating they should have revealed what was taking place……….did they even realize what was taking place…..who knows) were the sacrificial lambs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw8Rcj1CC_4

I think there is a difference in methods, but not goals. These are the goals of BF Skinner and his operant conditioning, but not his methods. I have a different Harvard prof confessing that.

What I have that is different, but still fits with what Charlotte and Anita have been saying is what I shorthand as cybernetics and insiders call cognitive science. I am going to flush that out more in the next post, but it will take a book to truly lay out that story. It is what I work on most days. I am letting out part of this story simply because it is so awful and we do not need Congress to enact ECAA and enshrine cybernetics as federal law so it can be perpetrated at a neurophysiological level. ECAA is what the OECD and the UN want for political and social transformation accomplished by targeting students’ at a neuronal level. Those open intentions and confessions are the new part.

I think that is where being a latecomer helped me. So did 25 years of marriage to someone who creates computer systems.

What if, as is the case, the district;s vision for teaching and learning is, as that Envision video mentioned, about getting to Equity in anticipation of an economically just ‘true democracy’? What is what is being internalized as what I call obuchenie is in anticipation of that. Is that something an education degree allows people to impose on others?

What if Congress and state legislatures accept the bogus rationales and impose this type of learning that truly is grounded in what totalitarian regimes desired from their people? We are not speculating here on the ancestry or what is being sought.

KnowledgeWorks that prepared this doc has Riley on their board. His law firm represents many of the school districts who want to push this and no one is telling parents what these terms really mean.

Did I mention that when the Metro Atlanta Chamber did an ed program where they had Joel Klein speak at the lunch http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/ridiculing-the-1860s-mind-as-unsuitable-for-the-21st-century-cui-bono/ , a previous speaker had pushed Covey’s work as what had actually been meant by the term ‘soft skills’ in the Ga statute HB186 that I wrote about in the book? It basically laid out all the tenets, including Competency and Project-based Learning that mirrors where ECAA wants to force all schools in all states. Remember Lamar knew quite well back in 1993 how important and useful the accreditation agencies are in making some reform seem ‘local’ while conforming to a national or global model.

There is active cover up in what is going on, in all areas. In the online movement as well as we have discussed before. Last night someone decided to be a truth teller about what happens when people push your work, Anita’s or Iserbyt. Perhaps some are starting to wake up.

The holistic assessment portion of the brilliant star is scary yet that is where we are headed.

I am quite aware of how much people want to keep people away from my insights because they are irrefutably documented. Listening to me or reading my stuff at length really is like putting on ‘conceptual goggles’ except mine give x-ray vision instead of guiding perception in ways that may have nothing to do with reality.

Years ago Charlotte’s work told me what OBE was really about and let me line up what I was hearing in meetings on the Common Core with what OBE was about. Anita’s adventures in PA that I had read about made me immediately recognize how the statutory language about soft skills could and would be used.

Did something happen last night in particular? I was out for the first time with friends since before I got so sick.

Can’t wait to drive my excessively privileged kids (who can’t get into UGA because cursed with non diverse parents) over a new bridge designed by a “broadened access recipient” who passed all the tests based on “right attitudes” and “reflecting our shared values that hold society accountable for Ferguson.”

I feel ashamed of myself for these anxieties, which are enriching. I feel hesitant and awkward, but right.

I’m sure everything will be okay, because worrying that it won’t be okay is a step in the wrong direction. We need to remember that those in authority wouldn’t be there unless they had earned and deserved the power, because hearts are in the right place. They’d never do anything to intentionally hurt us.

Localism is now meaning “your locality is where we send unskilled war zone refugees we created through our wars, and who are all innocent of crime. If they put pressure on your local resources (you are last in line at the ER), you shouldn’t complain because they are helping you join matured humanity’s evolving toward shared commitments on a local level.”

I knew she had been jetting off to bellagio to hype sustainability on this rockefeller initiative. Did you know this ties to the Clayton Christensen Institute and the Disruptive Innovation/Competency hype Michael Horn pushes?

Robin- I was thinking about your research into the application of ‘cybernetics’ to complete the control of children ( society) beyond rudimentary OBE conditioning and I went back to a few of your posts. I found what I was looking for in this statement by the always informative Urie Brofenbenner:
“perhaps the only proposition in social science that approaches the status of an immutable law–WI Thomas’s inexorable dictum: ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.’”
This ” if it’s real to you then it’s real ” philosophy is in the opening pages of I believe L Ron Hubbards book Dianetics.
I recently watched the documentary Going Clear at ‘ mad mommy’s ” suggestion . What she saw and I concurred is that the system/ method for brainwashing within the cult of Scientology is EXACTLY the method being placed in schools if not in the culture at large in a slightly less regimented manner.
The educrats can ascribe as many verbose scientifically based studies with Orwellian names as they like to their SEL but at the end of the day they learned from the Soviets how to seduce coerce and control individuals without their conscious funders and victims) described as “perhaps the only proposition in social science that approaches the status of an immutable law–WI Thomas’s inexorable dictum: ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.’” awareness. They have figured out how to make the individual the jailor of his own mind.
Makes me wonder how LRon H. Actually spent his time during WWII .
Topic for another day .

…
Geoffrey Britain Says:
April 16th, 2015 at 9:10 pm
“Years ago, people liked to talk about justice and the American people “waking” up to any number of things, and correcting the injustice.”
…
The second factor was identified back in the fifties by Whittaker Chambers, “One of Chambers’s closest friends, Ralph de Toledano, noted that when the “evil empire” collapsed, people asked him: “Would Whittaker Chambers still believe that he had left the winning side for the losing side?” He replied that Chambers, long before the collapse, had already seen “that the struggle was no longer between Communism and Western civilization, but one in which Western civilization was destroying itself by betraying its heritage.”

In essence, [u]“Communism had triumphed, not in its Marxist tenet but in its concept of man—a concept which the West has accepted.”[/u] It goes back to Chambers’s insistence that there are two faiths and the West must make a decision: God or man? As he wrote in Witness:

“God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor. …

eclectic-I shared some of the quotes from Marcuse, but I have actually read the entire book. Stunning in what it says.

On my trip to the Northeast I took an old paperback from Daniel Bell. It turned out to have been written in the late 50s while Bell was, believe it or not, doing a stint at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. In case CASBS is not on your radar yet, it was founded in the early 50s by Ralph Tyler who I wrote about in this post. I believe in my book I also mention it is where systems thinking was invented.

Bell wrote about the two roads up from Marx and how the West now has access to his conception of man. I am familiar with that and would point out that figuring out the Human Development Society angle is also something that has made my work different. Anyway, Bell pointed out that none of the early Soviets like a Stalin or Lenin or Trotsky had access to these early Marxist writings that show a different way forward that dovetails with where the West is. It is also this early writing that has such a fetish about technology igniting the ability to truly redistribute without beggaring anyone. Bell’s writings thus tie this vision to CASBS and Tyler in the late 50s. He also mentioned that George Lukacs, who founded the Frankfurt School in the 20s that Marcuse was a part of, had intuited that there was a missing area of writings on Marx’s that should contain his vision of the future.

I know much more than this, but everything just keeps coming back to the US especially having a big bullseye on its culture by the end of WW2 that was poorly acknowledged outside the insiders. I can trace them at this point because I have enough of the old books and they cite further unknown books that I then get my hands on. I may mention the hammer and Sickle to grab attention, but unfortunately it is also an apt comparison for where these ideas and practices came from and what they are intended to accomplish.

Both aldous huxley in his 62 ultimate revolution talk and escapees from scientology in the current HBO Doc refer to mind prison and enjoying ones servitude. Oh yeah its real. Mari good call on L Ron’s naval stint. Very fishy.

Increasingly more complex reciprocal interactions would certainly explain the need to make the classroom activity-oriented via something like Project-based learning and CEPAs–curriculum-embedded performance assessments instead of mental. It is hard to grasp how often this blog comes up when people are looking into the latest troubling Bronfenbrenner quote being thrown at hem in professional development.

Urie also may have known BEST was a metaphor, but it is not taught to teachers or students that way. For the reasons in the rule of social science and so the students will feel compelled to transform the world around them. Never aware they are trying to redesign entities and institutions and processes that evolved because they worked. Designing social processes is inherently an arrogant, troubling idea that shows a lack of historical knowledge. Much like the idea of just regulating everything as if there are no costs to regulation.

Perfectly. As will using formative assessment. It also allows all students to succeed or achieve as the new term in the Bipartisan legislation put it. Because parents would object to an acronym ECSETMNS–Every Child Socially Engineered to Meet the Needs of the State.

It could use the slogan “Your Governors have Spoken and Intend to Use the Data in Meaningful Ways for the Greater Good.”

This other grant recipient http://nextgenlearning.org/colorado-coalition includes the Adams 50 school district that is about as famous as Chugach for pushing competency-based education and the Reinventing Schools Coalition model.

Remember also that the Lumina Foundation convening in January in Dallas of the 75 metro areas included documents that see all ed going forward as private schools or charters. Lots of revenue available to anyone agreeing to this vision of education as being behavioral and sel based instead of about knowledge. Mustn’t have people like us who feel no compulsion to accept the explanation provided.

We’ve noticed the frenetic urgency that seems to permeate so much of the literature and planning for these 21st Century Learning transformations. What’s the rush? Where is the field-testing for these radical imperatives? Shouldn’t we be concerned — since we’re dealing with tender minds and hearts of the young — that proper protocols are in place as safeguards against amateur applications? Just what is this future that is being projected that requires these “competencies” of collaboration and communication for upcoming careers and college? Is there actually some global convergence happening that so many nations have to get on board — US, AU, NZ, UK, Can, etc.?

Like having a magical cataract operation in both eyes I think I see what’s up! There IS a celebration to happen next year, in Washington, DC, to commemorate 100 years of the “progressive project”. AND, to top it off, it is also the centennial celebration of John Dewey’s 1916 pivotal book, Democracy and Education.

The theme will be — “Public Scholarship to Educate Diverse Democracies”.

We know, indubitably, that “peer review” and “research” done by like-minded partisan members should not be taken seriously, nor be considered “evidence-based”. But, it’s disconcerting how “research” and foundation papers are ground out as objective truths and are used to influence policies and programs as proofs of effectiveness or need.

Well, WE ARE to prepare not only for these centennial celebrations — AERA and Dewey — but also for the positioning of “research to inform civic participation, engagement and organized action.” Pretty presumptuous, eh? Awareness and skepticism should be our response.

Our children are the field testing apart from the places like Atlanta, LA, NYC, or Chicago (which was a major cause of the APS cheating scandal) that piloted the New Standards Project and have really never stopped.

This is guinea pig research for political purposes to force a vision where politicians, their cronies, and the public sector control people and places for their own selfish ends. As Moises Naim indelicately put it in a book I was probably not supposed to see–we are in the era of the Governed and the Governors. ECCA is designed to force and then assess whether enough schoolchildren are being trained to be the malleable sheep ready to act on prompts needed by this vision for a political economy grounded in communitarianism.

That’s the world the AERA is celebrating as Diverse Democracies. All these people have no idea they are forcing education practices that amount to eating our seed corn. After that famine is only a matter of time even if all the Ed.D’s and Congress critters cannot foresee it yet. That’s the problem with the public sector in charge. There are insufficient penalties for getting it all wrong in policy. Sometimes you do not get a chance to fix what was blown apart or try a different policy. Victor Davis Hanson, a famous historian, wrote yesterday that it feels like the summer of 1914 or 1939.

Unfortunately the side with the decisionmaking power in education and economic policy is also the side that appears to be unfamiliar with those dates.

Tunya:
Exactly. What/where/when was this field testing? We are just to take their word for it I guess. When there is a ‘crisis’ or an ’emergency’ there is no time to dilly dally or think. We must act NOW!

Can they share with us what the future looks like? Can we assume they have a good track record in such predictions in the past?

I have noticed an almost constant and repeated pattern of argument.
1. State that there is or will be or might be a problem (lack of perfection).
2. Conclude that therefore you must accept the change inside the box which we have labelled with an ‘X.’ Don’t bother to look inside the box as that is not necessary. Just trust us.

Middle school kids are bored with math therefore you must accept the change we have labelled “not boring math.’ We have also labelled it ‘internationally bench marked’ and ‘evidence based.’ Do not inquire further.

Kids are having a hard time finding jobs and are not prepared for them therefore accept this change we have labelled ‘career ready.’ Don’t peek inside the box to see what it is. Don’t ask us to name the employers we have consulted with and what their comments were either.

Ever notice how Asians are supposed to be some mindless drones who only memorize facts and learn by rote and are incapable of independent thought … but ….. the new improved CC instruction materials we are to embrace are somehow ‘internationally bench marked’ against the tests these ‘drones’ take? As we are no longer teach facts how can our kids take tests which are bench marked against tests which test factual learning in Asia?

eclectic-there is a term for this lack of field testing-action research.

In my reply this morning to jt, I mentioned the New Standards Project materials on the NCEE site and how well they fit with the reality of the CC implementation tracked in either my book or this blog. Those materials lay out the basis for the claim about international benchmarking. I think the Common Core simply kept the verbiage because it sounded like something that would encourage deference. Reading over all those international cites was an added reminder of just how much these education reforms have always been about transforming Western culture once the Berlin Wall fell.

Thanks for the reference to Victor Davis Hanson and his comment about “this feels like the summer of 1914 or 1939” — the sickening omens preceding World War I and World War II.

I will try to learn more about Hanson and his war studies and particularly his views about the advance/retardation of civilization. I would like to find that quote referred to.

Meanwhile, thanks again for the imagery. Here in BC, Canada, I am strongly feeling the “squeeze” play or the “pincer movement” being unfolded.

Feels like we’re the most gullible target in the world for this planned Domino Fall to Global Transformation. I feel that others are also feeling the sinking of the Titanic is near — but who will be first?

This is where we are right now, and somehow I’m getting the distinct feeling that I am the only one crying out in the wilderness! Is it too late to insist on proper field-testing and protocols and safeguards regarding these mind shifts that are being implemented?

– 1986, Michael Fullan in BC, keynote — New Cultures for School Improvement

– 2015, Jan 29, David Albury , executive from GELP (Global Education Leaders Partnership) at BC Focus on Learning: Rising to the Global Challenge, sketches out how the world is adopting — by bits and pieces — the 21st Century personalized learning model, then said: “This is a pivotal moment for BC… if we can continue to work together in this way we can build on how far we’ve got and really accelerate and sustain this — we’ll achieve what nobody else has yet achieved and that is to transform the system across the whole province… to enable all young people to have the skills and knowledge to be successful in the 21st Century… I wish you all the very best.”

Towards the end. This is also a good explanation on why facts in science or history must go in favor of concepts, themes, Enduring Understanding. The student has little ability to discern whether what they are taught to perceive experiences through is true or false. Secondly, with an inability to foresee likely consequences, that inherent limitation on a willingness to use theory to guide action is gone. In fact, again it will be hard for most people to recognize they are even dealing with a theory.

I just finished a book on the Human Constructivist views of Assessing Science Understanding. Instead of a body of consistently verified knowledge from the centuries science in this new vision “is best understood as a formalized and highly adaptive way of harnessing the meaning making capacities of the human mind.” The harness is installed based on what is useful for politically transformative purposes instead of what is true. That is essentially Marcuse’s New Rationality with a different rationale. It functions equivalently for the benefit if the oligarchs with political control.

That manifesto makes it crystal clear that what Stiggins calls standards-based schools and instruction are designed to create that harness I wrote about in today’s post. That truly was the metaphow we needed and it was developed using educators’ own phraseology of their intentions.

That harness is how this call to Revolutionize assessment needs to be filtered. I also do not think Stiggins’ use of the term achievement standards is anything other than the same use as what the ECCA has in mind. It is the new euphemism for performance standards since states like Georgia already used the term and then bragged in their Race to the Top applications that they were piloting the Common Core vision. Controversies and notoriety never change the function of a ‘reform’. It just necessitates a new name and maybe being broken into geared pieces to avoid detection. Much like that ECCA definition that then states ‘challenging state academic standards’ over and over for more than 500 pages as if it was about Calculus or Algebra or taking on War and Peace for summer reading.

These police raids were looking for papers and computer records showing evidence of coordination in political campaigns, not money, drugs, or guns. The warrants could have been served in broad daylight by a small number of officers, without the shock and awe. Also note that the people raided were forbidden under the John Doe warrants from telling anyone else about the raids.

From memory, there was a low level Republican party volunteer who was charged with a felony for making a politically related email during her own time on her own computer but within a govt building, where she worked. They squeezed her for information about Gov. Walker but she was very low level and knew nothing. I recall she plead guilty to a felony and had her life ruined. Again, my memory may not be perfect.